


How Could He Do This?

by SingingInTheRaiin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Tom Riddle, Death Eaters, Harry Potter is a Horcrux, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Impulsive Harry, Kidnapping, M/M, Magical Racism, Mention of Child Abuse, Stockholm Syndrome, Time Travel, Toxic Relationship, bookstore owner harry, brave Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 12:08:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18468646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingingInTheRaiin/pseuds/SingingInTheRaiin
Summary: After sixth year, Voldemort was able to kidnap Harry, and decided to send him back in time to be watched over by his younger self, back when he was still known as Tom Riddle. The younger Tom and Harry end up falling in love, though it seems like it is doomed to fail from the start, considering just how different they are.





	How Could He Do This?

**Author's Note:**

> I don't want to give spoilers, so check the end notes for the reason I marked it as chose not to use archive warnings

His voice had never sounded as cold as it did when he ordered Harry to drop his wand. Harry clutched it tighter, in direct defiance of the order, and clenched his jaw as he looked at Tom. “You’re better than this,” he said softly. “You’ve always been capable of being better. I just wish that you could see all the good in you that I can see. Please, Tom, just walk away. Prove that I was right to believe in you all this time.”

Harry watched with wide eyes as Tom prowled closer to him, and then reached up to jam the point of his wand into the vulnerable flesh under his chin. “You're not the one in any position to be making requests, Harry. Now drop your wand or die where you stand. I have nothing to prove to anybody.”

Harry gulped once, but refused to obey. “I can’t do what you’re asking of me, Tom. So you’re going to have to kill me, because there are no other choices left, for either of us.”

He wanted to squeeze his eyes shut, and maybe also curl up into a ball on the floor while he was at it, but Harry forced himself to stand strong, and to look directly into Tom’s eyes. If he was going to be killed tonight, he wanted it to be while looking right at his killer, so that Tom wouldn’t be able to forget for a second who was at the other end of his wand.

Tom reached out with his free hand to cup the side of Harry’s face. Then he leaned in for a light kiss, which made his wand dig even more uncomfortably into Harry’s skin. He pulled away just enough to speak, though their foreheads were still pressed up against each other. “Goodbye, darling.”

,,,  
??? Years Earlier  
,,,

Harry tried to roll over to turn off his alarm, but it was impossible for him to move at all with the way Tom was clinging to him so tightly. He always teased Tom about being an octopus in bed, though Tom would deny it until his dying day that he was a big cuddler. “Tom, let go,” he whined. “I’ll die if I have to keep listening to the alarm going off.”

Instead of letting Harry free, or even saying anything at all, Tom rolled them over so that he was on top of Harry, pressed against him all along their bodies, and he was able to reach out and hit the snooze button on the alarm. He did that without opening his eyes once, and then slumped down, putting his full weight on Harry.

Harry tried to shove Tom away, but it was a fruitless effort. “You’re going to crush me to death,” he complained, but he didn’t really mind that much. There was something comforting about having Tom’s weight over him. Though it didn’t change the facts. “I think you’re also forgetting about the part where the whole point of the alarm going off is so that you and I can get up and get ready for work.”

“No,” Tom grunted out, refusing to move. 

Harry rolled his eyes, and decided that it was time to resort to drastic measures. He reached up, having to bend his arm at an awkward angle to do so, and lightly scratched along Tom’s side, tickling the man enough that he jumped up, and glared down at Harry. Harry just shrugged. “I told you to get up.”

Tom yanked Harry up out of bed as well, and gave him a kiss. “You’re going to pay for that, you know.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Harry said with a grin. “Now are you going to shower first, or am I? And don’t you dare try to suggest that we showed together to save time, because we both know what a tremendous lie that would be. I’d actually like to get to work on time for once in my life.”

Tom snorted. “Fine, fine, you go first. You’re always much quicker than me.” He followed that statement with a little wink, and then hurried out of the room before Harry could throw something at him.

Harry rolled his eyes as he headed into the bathroom, where he rushed through a quick shower that was just good enough to get him feeling clean and fresh for the day. Then he headed to the kitchen to start making breakfast while Tom showered. Tom always had to use a million different bottles of products that had vastly different scents, and yet somehow they never seemed overwhelming on Tom the way that they definitely would if Harry ever tried them out.

He was finished with all of the cooking by the time Tom finally emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam. He walked up behind Harry to wrap his arms around Harry’s stomach in a tight hug. “That smells amazing. You are an angel.”

They both ate quickly, and then Tom was stuck with the cleaning up. They always had a rule that whoever didn’t cook did the cleaning, and the majority of the time, it was Tom who did the cleaning. Mostly because when he did try to cook, things came out practically inedible, no matter how many times Harry tried to teach him to be better. At this point, it was easier for Harry to do the cooking, and when he was too tired or not in the mood, Tom would order take out.

After everything was cleaned up and put away, they both headed out the front door, and took a taxi together to the nearest apparation point. There were already a couple of others standing in the small space, but instead of forming a line, the two men just squished themselves in and used their magic. 

They were headed in different directions, Tom to the Ministry, and Harry to Diagon Alley where he ran a small bookstore. In the summer months, he always had to show up to work at least an hour early and stay pretty late to make sure that he got every possible sale that he could from the Hogwarts students. But right now it was March, and the business was pretty slow. It was never bad enough that he was losing money, but it was at a point where Harry only hired anyone to work in the summer, because he wouldn’t be able to afford paying a salary most of the rest of the time. 

He got settled in for the day, and it all passed by just like any other day. He flipped the closed sign on the door when he headed out to meet with Tom for a brief lunch break, and then they both headed back to their workplaces. At the end of the day, Harry started to close up, but then there was the bell over the front door that he hadn’t locked yet, and three young people rushed in, slamming the door shut behind them.

Harry walked over to them. “You don’t have to rush, you can take your time to-”

“There’s someone out there!” one of them panted out. As Harry looked closer, he realized that all three of them look out of breath, and absolutely terrified. “They just set the broom store on fire!”

If this was some kind of prank, it was a terrible one, but the looks on their faces seemed too genuine for it to all just be an act. “Go hide in the back room. Stay there for as long as you can, but if you have to run, there’s a window big enough to climb out of.”

One of them reached out to grab his arm, and they clutched it uncomfortably tightly. “What about you?”

“I’m going to go figure out what’s going on. Don’t worry, I promise that I won’t let anything happen to you.” He waited until he saw the door to the backroom close behind them, and then took a deep breath before heading outside. He locked the door behind him, as if that would do any good when it was mostly made of glass. 

As soon as he was outside, he could see the smoke rising up from above the broom shop, and there was a sick feeling in his stomach about what was happening. Harry drew his wand, and then started running closer. He let out a shocked gasp when suddenly, up above the store, the smoke twisted and curled into a dark green skull with a snake pouring out of its mouth. There was no one else around, even though Harry knew that some of the stores didn’t close until even later. They must have all run away or found a place to hide, and he couldn’t blame them if there was something like this going on. 

But Harry was determined to stop whoever had committed this terrible crime. He walked closer to the building, and then realized that there were people standing in front of it, but they had blended in with the night because of the dark robes they were wearing. When one of them turned slightly, Harry could see that they were wearing intricate looking masks that covered their entire faces.

Harry pointed his wand towards the group. “Hey! Stop right where you are! I’ve already called for the aurors, and you’re all going to be in a lot of trouble for attacking that store, but trying to resist arrest will only make it worse!” He hadn’t actually thought to call the aurors- Stupid, Harry, stupid- but he hoped that they wouldn’t call his bluff, and that maybe someone else who had witnessed the crime would have been smart enough to call.

One of the masked figures laughed. “As if your aurors could ever stop us. But I’m glad that you’re here. We need witnesses to spread the word of our deeds. Let it be known that any creature with mud in their veins is due a visit from us! The owner of this shop was the filthy product of a wizard betraying his own kind by fornicating with a muggle! Magical tradition is dying out, but we will save it, one mudblood at a time. Everyone will know the full extent of our power!”

“ _Expelliarmus_!” Harry wasn’t going to just sit back and let these delusional people go around hurting anyone, no matter what their reasons were. Sometimes, when Tom talked about cases that he oversaw, Harry could almost understand why the criminals had acted the way that they had. But the way that these people were talking right now was just sickening, and it made Harry want to throw up. But more importantly, it made him want to demand justice.

He successfully disarmed the one person, but there were still so many others who quickly turned on him, casting spells of their own. Harry threw up some quick shields, and then tried to keep disarming the attackers. He didn’t want for anyone to get hurt. 

Unfortunately, it was one person against at least seven, maybe more, and Harry hadn’t had any need to practice using offensive or defensive magic like this since his school days. He was quickly tiring, and all it took was for his shield to drop for a couple of seconds. He went to reapply it as soon as he noticed that it had fallen, but it was too late, and suddenly it felt like his entire body was on fire.

Harry clenched his teeth together to stop himself from screaming out at the pain, ready to fight through it. But the sad truth was that the pain was distracting, and he started getting clumsier with his aim and pronunciations, and more spells were hitting him. And the more he was hit, the more difficult it was to try and continue defending himself.

If it was just Harry’s life on the line, he’d probably flee now while he still could. But all he had to do was think of those three terrified faces of the people hiding in his shop, and he knew that he couldn’t go anywhere until he was sure that they would be safe. He silently pleaded for aurors to show up and help him, but was resolved to continue fighting even without them and their expertise.

All the spells flying around seemed like just blurs of color, and eventually Harry was knocked back, sprawling onto the ground and losing his grip on his wand. One of the masked figures stomped over to him, and quickly picked up his wand, snapping it in half. Harry’s eyes widened, and he could feel a new surge of adrenaline rush through him. He wasn’t powerless just because he had no wand.

He swung his legs around to hook his feet around the backs of the person’s knees, forcing them to the ground, where Harry was able to punch them in the face and then grab their wand right out of their hands. He quickly cast a spell to knock the person out, and then staggered back up to his feet.

He knew that he had to look wild now, with his hair sticking out even more messily than usual, and blood dripping down from so many places on him, along with the bruises scattered everywhere, and the mix of blood and dirt on his clothes. He clutched the unfamiliar wand tightly in his hand, and hoped that the rules of disarmament extended to physically grabbing a want from somebody else. “Are you ready to stand down?”

In reality, Harry should be the one giving up, and just trying to get away with his life. He wished he could see the looks underneath the masks, so that he would at least have some idea of whether or not these people were at all concerned at the thought of having Harry as an enemy. Even without knowing that, though, he was going to stand his ground. Even as more spells were flung his way, and he got the feeling that they were going to soon graduate to worse dark magic than they were already using. 

And then there were several loud pops as multiple wizards in auror robes appeared, and Harry felt dizzy with relief at the idea that he wasn’t going to be standing here on his own anymore. He swayed back and forth, yet managed to remain on his feet, watching as the aurors all stood there, waiting for orders from their leader.

Instead of anything that would actually make sense, the auror in charge of this squad rushed forward to catch Harry before he could fall. Then he looked over at the robed figures. “You idiots!” he hissed out, rage evident in each syllable that fell from his lips. “How dare you hurt him?”

One of the masked people reached up to wipe their mask away, as if it were just made of smoke, and Harry vaguely recognized the woman from their school days. “I’m sorry, my lord. We did not realize-”

Tom stood slowly, carefully scooping the exhausted and pained Harry into his arms. “Obviously you did not. If you had known who this was and attacked him anyways, then that could be taken as the sign of a traitor. As it stands, it only serves as a sign of your gross incompetence.” 

The others were all quick to bow down and apologize, all of them referring to Tom as a lord. Harry furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, and looked up at Tom. “What’s going on?”

Tom glanced down at him, all of the anger instantly melting away into something much softer, and fonder. “You don’t have to worry about any of it, love, I promise. In the morning, this won’t even be a bad dream anymore.” He looked over at the aurors. “Clean up this mess. Make sure all of those idiots get away from here in one piece. Even that one,” he said as he nodded towards the man Harry had taken down. Tom shifted so that he was holding Harry’s head a bit higher up, and kissed him on the forehead. “I’m so sorry about this.”

“‘bout what?” Harry muttered out, despite how much his body seemed to be enjoying the idea of just passing out.

Tom pulled his wand out. “ _Obliviate_!”

,,,

Harry woke up in the hospital, and was immediately confused. He turned his head to the side, and saw that Tom was sitting on a chair next to the bed, looking like he’d just nodded off while sitting there. Harry reached out to rest his hand on Tom’s knee. Tom snapped to attention, and then looked down at Harry with a watery smile, his eyes red. “Oh Merlin, I’m so glad that you’re awake. When I got to Diagon Alley and saw you lying on the ground, and all those insane people standing around so smugly, I thought for sure that I’d lost you.”

“What happened?”

Tom gripped Harry’s hand tightly. “The DMLE was sent a rather frantic letter by patronus, and we were informed that there had been attack on one of the shops. My team was sent out immediately, and we found you lying injured on the ground. We fought off the remaining attackers, but the bastards managed to make a run for it. I swear to you, Harry, they won’t get away with everything they did to you.”

Harry leaned over to pull Tom into a hug, and they remained in that embrace for a while before finally pulling apart. “Well, they can’t have done anything too bad to me, because I feel fine now.”

There was a sad look on Tom’s face. “The doctor said that if we’d gotten you here even a couple of minutes later, you would have probably died. It was bad, Harry. Please never scare my like that ever again. What were you even doing out there up against them?”

Harry shrugged. “There were these kids, and they were so scared for their lives, and I had to protect them.”

Tom’s face morphed to a look of shock. “You mean that you went up against them like that on purpose? What the hell were you thinking, Harry? You could’ve gotten yourself killed!”

“But I didn’t,” Harry said calmly. “I knew that I only needed to hold them off long enough for you to get there, and I was right. I knew you’d come for me, Tom. You always do, and I love you for that. And I’m sorry, but I can’t promise that I wouldn’t do something like that again. If people are in trouble, and they need my help, then I have to do whatever I can. You must agree with that philosophy, or you wouldn’t have become an auror.”

Tom scowled. “Yes, and because I’m auror, I have training! I know how to handle myself in a fight without almost getting myself killed! What you did was reckless and stupid and selfish, and-”

“I’m sorry, selfish? How the hell was that selfish?”

Tom put his hands on Harry’s shoulders, as if he was about to try and shake some sense into him. “You could have died out there, Harry! What do you think would have happened to me if you died?”

Harry gulped as he paused for a moment. He knew that Tom was an orphan, just like him. It was one of the first things they’d realized that they had in common. All they had was each other, and they’d had a very similar argument to this when Tom had first declared his intentions to be an auror. Harry had argued that he didn’t want to stop Tom from doing what he wanted, but that he wanted to be an auror as well, so that they could watch each other’s backs while doing some good for the world. Harry couldn’t even remember what had been said to make him eventually back down, but whatever it was, it had been effective.

His shoulders slumped down, and he bowed his head forward to rest against Tom’s. “I’m sorry. I hadn’t even thought about that. I just got so caught up in the moment, trying to help those kids, but you’re right. It was stupid of me to do that.”

Tom sighed. “It was stupid beyond doubt. But I also can’t deny that it was incredibly brave, and that’s one of the things I love about you, as much as it drives me crazy to think of you being in danger. Just please try to refrain from being in a situation like that again if you can help it at all.”

Harry nodded. “I’ll try, I swear.”

,,,

Harry had shut down the store early, and had decided he was going to surprise Tom at work with a picnic in his office. He knew that election season was always tricky, since Tom had spent so long trying to work his way up through the political side of the Ministry. Even though that hadn’t panned out for him, Tom had still become very successful, but still found election season to be a complete pain in the butt. 

As Harry stepped inside the auror office, the secretary at the front desk, gave him a strange look. “Mr. Riddle is in an important meeting right now. I can tell him that you stopped by, if you’d like?”

Harry shook his head. “That’s alright, I’ll just wait in his office, he won’t mind.”

The secretary raised one eyebrow. “How exactly do you know Mr. Riddle?”

“We’re flatmates,” Harry answered easily enough. He wished that he could just scream to the world how much he loved Tom, but they both knew that Tom having a job in the political sector meant that he couldn’t afford to have anything scandalous on his record, which meant maintaining a certain public persona.

The secretary pressed her lips together in a flat line. “You must be Mr. Potter, then?” Harry nodded, somewhat surprised that Tom would have mentioned his name to anyone at work. “I’m afraid that Mr. Riddle has specifically requested that you not be allowed into the office, under any circumstances beyond an emergency.”

Harry’s eyes widened. “What? Why?”

The woman shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe you leave your dirty socks lying around too often and he doesn’t appreciate it. Regardless of what his reasons are, I cannot let you in.”

Harry’s first instinct was to stand there and argue with the lady, but he knew that she was just doing her job, and didn’t want to cause any trouble for her. “I understand. You don’t need to tell him I was here. Thank you anyways.” He turned and shuffled back onto the elevator, not sure of how he should be feeling.

Normally, if Tom had a late day at the office, whether it was because he had to fill out boring paperwork or because something actually exciting happened in one of his cases, Harry would just go to bed when he was ready. But tonight, Harry was determined to wait up so that he could try and figure out what the hell was going on.

He didn’t want Tom to feel like he was being ambushed as he walked in through the front door, even though Harry definitely felt like he’d been ambushed, finding out that Tom didn’t want him in the office in such a humiliating way. It’s not like Harry had never been to the office before. He couldn’t remember any specific moments, but he could remember that it had happened. The place looked too familiar for that to not be true.

As Tom walked in, he immediately looked over at where Harry was sitting on the big comfy chair, curled up with a book on his lap that he was barely paying any attention to. “Harry? You’re up late, aren’t you?”

Harry closed the book with a loud snap, and then turned to look over at Tom. “Did your secretary tell you that I tried to stop by the office to see you today?” Tom silently shook his head, though the tense look on his face seemed to give away that he knew exactly that that had to mean. “You told her that I’m not allowed in your office? Why? Are you afraid that I’d out you? Because I wouldn’t do that.”

Tom took a few steps further into the room, though he didn’t try to really approach Harry. “Of course I know you wouldn’t. To be honest with you, Harry, it’s because you’re just so damn distracting. Every time I see you, I just want to pull you into a corner and start kissing your breathless, but I can’t do that at work, so it’s easiest if I don’t see you there.”

The unimpressed look on Harry’s face was hopefully quite obvious. “I don’t believe you.”

Tom sighed, and then he bowed his head down. “I’m so sorry about this. _Obliviate_!”

,,,

Harry looked around the kitchen in frustration, barely even noticing as Tom walked in. He seemed to notice the mood that Harry was in, and walked over to pull him into a hug, resting his chin on top of Harry’s head. “What’s wrong, love?”

“I can’t remember where we keep the damn silverware. How can I not remember where to find something that we use literally everyday?”

Tom let go of him so that he could walk over to one of the drawers lining the counter, and pulled it open to reveal the silverware. “It’s alright, darling. It’s perfectly understandable that you’d have a lot on your mind besides the silverware, considering all of the stress you’ve been under lately. But please try not to worry so much. I’ll be here for you, no matter what you need.”

Harry let himself be pulled into another hug. “Thank you, Tom. I don’t know where I’d be without you.”

,,,

When Harry heard the news, he cancelled the monthly book club meeting that was usually hosted in his shop, and closed up early so that he could rush home. The radio announcers kept saying that people needed to stay calm, and that everything would be okay, but how the hell were people supposed to stay calm when they just got word that twenty muggleborns had been slaughtered by those masked terrorists, who were now calling themselves Death Eaters?

Harry didn’t even know what his lineage looked like, but honestly, he didn’t care. It wasn’t right for innocent people to be killed, and Harry would figure out how to help in whatever ways were possible. As he threw open the door to the apartment he shared with Tom, he wasn’t expecting to find himself facing down several of the Death Eaters right in his own home. They were unmistakable, because Harry knew he would never forget those creepy masks worn by the people who’d almost killed him the first time he’d encountered them. Were they were for Tom because he was a half-blood? Or here for revenge on Harry? Well, either way, Harry wouldn’t let them win. Not now, and not ever.

As he drew his wand out, though, he realized that Tom was sitting on the couch, a cup of tea on the small table in front of him. Harry furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “Tom…?” Tom pushed past the Death Eaters, and immediately initiated a fierce kiss with Harry. But Harry couldn’t be distracted from the other people standing in his home, and he gently pushed Tom away. “What the hell is going on here?”

Tom sighed as he whipped out his want to point at Harry. “You little fool. How long are we destined to keep playing this game, Harry? Because I am beginning to grow quite tired of it.”

“What are you talking about?” Harry gripped his wand tightly, though it was made slightly more difficult by the sweat he could feel building up on his palms.

Tom shrugged, and glanced back at the Death Eaters for just a moment before focusing on Harry again. “I’m tired of seeing that look of judgement in your face, Harry. Why can’t you just accept me for who I am? It’s what you’re meant to do. You have a part of me inside of you, even if I haven’t technically given it to you yet. Even if you don’t remember it. We’re literal soulmates, Harry. Nobody else in the world is ever going to get as close to that as the two of us.” He extended his free hand, a small smile on his face. “Come on, Harry. Surely you can understand that what I’m doing is for the benefit of all magical kind.”

Harry steeled himself for what had to be done. “I doubt that those twenty dead muggle borns can see much benefit in any of this. How could you ever think that I would be a part of this? How could you ever be a part of this?” He had to attack, there was no other choice, but Tom had always been quicker. 

“ _Obliviate_!”

,,,

Harry was halfway down the street when he realized that he couldn’t remember where he’d been headed. He paused in the middle of the sidewalk, much to the annoyance of the people around him, but it’s not like there was any point in continuing forward when he didn’t even know where ‘forward’ was.

The fact that he couldn’t remember seemed like it should be something worrisome, but it felt like there was a haze over Harry’s mind, and he didn’t see his memory problem as too big of an issue. He did find it strange, though, when a man with a mop of red hair suddenly froze, and stared at Harry with wide eyes. “Harry?”

Harry blinked a couple of times. “Sorry, do I know you from somewhere?” The man didn’t seem familiar at all, but it’s not like there was any reason for the man to know his name. Maybe he had been a customer in Harry’s store at one point?

The man frowned, and reached out like he wanted to grab Harry’s arms, but then paused before actually making contact. “Mate, it’s me, Ron. Hermione and I have been doing everything to try and find you. She’s the one who figured out that you might be stuck back here.”

“Stuck? I’m not stuck.” Though maybe that was a silly thing to say on today of all days, when he felt like he had no idea which way to go, and had not tried to move forward at all. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I know you. Maybe you’ve mistaken me for someone else?”

The worried look in Ron’s eyes seemed entirely real, and even though it wasn’t something Harry recognized, he felt a warmth in his stomach at the thought of this stranger caring about him. “Voldemort did this. He thought that sending you back to your younger self would make you his.”

“Who’s Voldemort?”

Ron’s eyes widened, and then he clenched his hands into fists. “Hermione will figure out what’s wrong with you,” he muttered mostly to himself. Then he grabbed Harry by the wrist and tugged him down the street. “Come on, we need to get out of here before we miss our ride.”

Even though he had no idea where they were going, Harry let himself be pulled along. At least he was moving somewhere, which seemed better than just standing still and waiting for something to happen. Or maybe this had been the ‘something’ that he’d been waiting for, and just hadn’t realized it. Either way, he made no move to fight against Ron. “Tom might get worried about me,” he suddenly pointed out.

Ron glanced at Harry, and then reached down to grab something out of Harry’s tightly clenched hand. “This is a grocery list. Were you on your way to the store, or on your way back?”

Was he? He looked at the list as they continued to walk, though it was at a slightly slower pace, and then Harry vaguely remembered Tom sending him out to run errands. “Yes, I think so. I was on my way.” Or at least that was the best guess he could make, since he didn’t have any groceries in his hands.

“Then we should have at least a little bit of time before he finds it weird that you’re not back. We need to get out of here before then.”

The rest of their walk seemed to pass by in a blur, and Harry mumbled out apologies to all of the people he bumped into. It felt like years passed before they reached an old dilapidated shack. Ron dragged him inside, and when they got there, Harry saw a pretty woman. She looked over at them with wide eyes. “You found him!” then she leapt towards Harry and pulled him into a tight hug.

Harry stood there stiffly, not sure how he should respond. He was pretty sure that Tom was supposed to be the only one he exchanged hugs with, though he couldn’t figure out why he thought that that sounded right. The woman seemed to realize how tense he was, and she slowly took a step back, looking him over carefully before turning to look at Ron. He sighed. “I don’t know what Voldemort did to him, but he seems totally out of it, and doesn’t remember us at all.”

The woman narrowed her eyes, though she didn’t seem to be angry with Harry, so he didn’t feel bothered by it. “Remember Lockhart? If someone as incompetent as him could master the art of memory spells, then I have no doubt that Voldemort could as well. We need to get back to our own time before we can figure this out though. Come on.” She gently pulled Harry closer to her, and motioned for Ron to huddle with them as well. Then she threw a golden chain around all of their necks, and started fiddling with something that Harry couldn’t see. He tilted his head, curious about what it was, but didn’t get a good look before everything started zipping around like he was flying really fast on his broom.

,,,

The small house elf kept looking at him with something that might have been disdain, but might have also been concern. It was difficult to tell. “Don’t worry, I know how to make breakfast,” he assured the elf.

The creature narrowed his eyes. “I should be making breakfast,” he insisted, but Harry just brushed it aside.

Cooking was one of the few things that he could actually do, even if it did require some supervision. He wasn’t sure exactly how long he’d been in this unfamiliar house, at least a couple of weeks or so, and Ron and Hermione had been coming and going the entire time. Kreacher, the house elf, was the only one there all the time, and he took his orders to watch over Harry very seriously. 

Then Kreacher suddenly disappeared, which meant that either Ron or Hermione had come to visit. Harry put down the few ingredients that he’d already gathered, and headed down the hall to see which of them it was. He stopped when he saw Hermione standing there, escorting an older man with greasy black hair. “I’m sure you understand how much trust we’re putting in you, professor, to bring you here. But I’ve tried everything I could think of, and I haven’t been able to figure out a way to reverse an obliviate spell, and I know that you worked with Harry on mind-related things back in fifth year.”

The man looked over at Harry with sharp eyes. “Do you know who I am?”

Harry slowly shook his head. “No, sorry.”

The man seemed to relax at that answer. “We need a private room to work in. This is going to require my full concentration.”

Harry led the man into the drawing room, and closed the doors behind him. Then he turned to face the stranger, feeling somewhat awkward. “So what’s your name?”

That seemed to startle the man for a moment. “You may call me Professor Snape, or just professor.” They both sat down on the couch, leaving the middle cushion open between them. “I am going to go into your mind. If you have been obliviated, then it means that your memories have been entirely erased, and there is no chance of recovering them. However, if some other method was used, then the memories were more likely swept under the rug, where it is still possible to retrieve them. Either way, I intend to help stabilize whatever you have up there, to make sure that you will not be living in the haze that Miss Granger has described to me. Do you have any questions before we begin?”

Will it hurt? was what Harry wanted to ask, but he got the feeling that Professor Snape didn’t like him, and he didn’t want to give the man any reason to call him weak. So he just shook his head, and squeezed his eyes shut, hoping that this process wouldn’t be too bad. 

,,,

When Harry woke up, he felt more clear-headed than he had in a very long time. When he tried to focus on his memories, they were still a bit fuzzy, but he felt like an actual human being, which was major progress. He hadn’t even realized how bad he had gotten, and was now exceedingly grateful to Ron and Hermione for wanting to help him.

He headed downstairs, and found the two of them in the kitchen, sipping tea. Ron looked over at him cautiously when he heard Harry come in. “Good morning. How did you sleep?”

“Pretty well, thank you.” He walked over to the table and sat down without bothering to get himself any tea first. “I can’t thank you enough for everything that you’ve done for me, either of you. Tom must have been so worried about me when I started getting so weird. He’ll be so happy to see that I’m better now.”

Hermione and Ron exchanged a quick look before Hermione cleared her throat. “Harry, you can’t go back to Tom. He’s the one who did that to you in the first place. I talked to Snape, and he agrees with my theory that having your memories erased too many times in a relatively short period is what messed your mind up so much. He doesn’t care about you, Harry. If he did, he wouldn’t have erased your mind even once, let alone hundreds of times.”

Harry frowned as he tried to think of any times when Tom had erased his memories, but he couldn’t recall any. Then he sighed at how stupid he was to think that he’d be able to remember losing memories. But there didn’t even seem to be any strange unexplainable gaps. “I think that you guys are mistaken. I don’t doubt that you’ve reached a conclusion about too many mind wipes being a problem, but there’s no reason to think that it was Tom who did it.”

Ron scooted his chair a bit closer to Harry’s, and spoke in an earnest voice. “Look, I know you probably don’t really understand it, but Tom and you lived together starting around 1950, right?” Harry furrowed his eyebrows as he tried to think back to when he and Tom had first moved into an apartment together. He couldn’t come up with any other answer, so he just nodded. “Well right now it’s 2007. Between then and now, your Tom becomes Voldemort, an evil dark wizard who cares about nothing but killing muggles and muggleborns. You went to a school called Hogwarts, in the same year as ‘Mione and me, and sometime in the summer after our sixth year, you went missing. We’ve been looking for you ever since, and then we realized that you hadn’t been killed, but spirited away to a different time. It’s a pretty good hiding place, but we were determined to rescue you. Your Tom kidnapped you, Harry. And he must’ve erased all your memories of your life in order to make it easier to live with him.”

None of that made any sense. There was no way that Tom was a kidnapper. He loved Harry. It was so obvious every time their eyes met, and he couldn’t believe otherwise. Hermione reached across the table to gently rest her hand on top of Harry’s. “What the absolute earliest thing that you can remember?”

Harry squeezed his eyes shut as he willed himself to remember something from his childhood, something that would prove that they were wrong. “I remember my aunt cutting my hair, when I was maybe five or six, but then it grew back the next day, and she slapped me for it.” He opened his eyes to peer at his guests nervously, wondering if they were going to tell him that that hadn’t been real.

There was a gentle smile on Hermione’s face that made Harry’s stomach twist up into knots. “It must’ve been easier for him to leave you with at least some base memories, instead of having to build you up an entire lifetime from scratch. That memory sounds like something real. I know this is going to sound strange, but I want you to focus on the details of your house in that memory. What kind of things do you see?”

At first, Harry wasn’t quite sure what she was getting at. But as he thought about it, he realized that he understood her request. There were a lot of things in the house in his memory that he easily recognized for what they were- coffeemaker, television set, refrigerator. But he also knew that none of those appliances looked like that, at least not in the fifties.

He gulped, and pulled his hand free so that he could rest both hands on his lap. “So what am I supposed to do now? I feel like my entire life has just been one giant lie. Am I even an orphan.”

“Yes. Voldemort was the one who killed your parents. He tried to kill you too, but-”

Harry reached up to touch the scar on his forehead. “-but a piece of his soul landed inside of me,” he whispered, unable to keep the horror out of his voice.

Hermione gave him a strange look. “What?”

Harry stood abruptly, his chair squeaking as the legs slid across the kitchen floor. “I- I don’t remember who taught me about them, but I remember learning about horcruxes. About how your soul gets torn in half when you kill someone, and you can choose to put one of the pieces into something else.”

“Yes! You told us that you were going to hunt down all of the horcruxes to destroy them!” Ron practically cheered. “Do you remember that?”

Harry shook his head apologetically. “No. I’m never going to get those lost memories back, remember? But it makes sense, if you think about it. There's really no other reason for him to not just kill me outright, and to be so protective of me.” He gulped, as he thought about how beautiful Tom looked lying in bed, sunlight gleaming in through the open sliver in the curtains, making it look like he was glowing. Or the way that every time they kissed, it felt like something electric was passing between them. Or the way Tom called him ‘love’ and ‘darling’ and made him feel so wanted. “Let’s say that you’re right, and Tom kidnapped me. He still fell in love with me, I know that much for sure. I’m going to do whatever I can to help you, because I know that Tom can still be saved.”

Ron and Hermione shared yet another worried look. “Don’t get your hopes up too high, Harry. It may have only been a month for you, but it’s been half a century for him.”

Harry shrugged. “I can do this. I know that I can.” There was no way that he was going to let Tom down, not after everything they’d been through together.

,,,

They’d gotten word that this was where Tom was staying. He didn’t need to hide out, since there had been very little resistance against him. There was a group called the Order of the Phoenix, but their numbers were small and with most of his horcruxes still out there, Tom was unbeatable, at least by force.

They fought their way through the small amount of Death Eaters in the house, and then Ron shouted for Harry to run ahead while they kept up the fight. Harry listened, and sprinted down the hallway, and into the office, slamming and locking the door shut behind him. Then he turned to face Tom, though he was certainly taken aback by the deathly pale skin, and the snake-like lack of a nose. 

Tom seemed just as surprised to see Harry, but he recovered from the shock much more quickly. “Drop your wand, Harry.”

,,,

Tom reached out with his free hand to cup the side of Harry’s face. Then he leaned in for a light kiss, which made his wand dig even more uncomfortably into Harry’s skin. He pulled away just enough to speak, though their foreheads were still pressed up against each other. “Goodbye, darling.”

Before he could cast anything, though, Harry kicked up and slammed his knee into Tom’s stomach, and then took the moment to his advantage when he plucked Tom’s wand from his hand. “Give up now, Tom. No one else out there is as forgiving as I am. None of them are as willing to give you another chance.”

“I don’t need another chance,” Tom snarled. “I’ve got everything that I could ever want. What possible reason could I have for giving up now?”

Harry shrugged. “You don’t have me. I know that my memory isn’t the greatest these days, but I can still remember what it feels like to be loved by you, and to love you in return. I know you must have been lonely all this time, after I was returned to the present, but I promise you that I was lonely too. Just give up, Tom, and everything can go back to the way that things used to be. Remember how perfect it all was?”

He waited breathlessly for Tom’s response, hoping with everything he had that it would be something favorable. Tom frowned with his practically lipless mouth. “I offered you the same chance once, to just give up and join me, but you refused.”

While Harry couldn’t remember that happening, he could believe that he would have adamantly rejected the idea. He believed in helping people, or at the very least, not harming anyone. “Because that was the right thing for me to do. And giving up now is the right thing for you to do. Please, Tom.”

“You’re only saying all of this to get me to stand down. And then as soon as I do, you’ll be throwing me into Azkaban while you hunt the remainder of my horcruxes.”

Harry quickly shook his head. “That’s not true! I’m saying all of this because I love you! I know that it’s screwed up, but I know that what we had was real, and I’m not ready to give up on that yet! I feel so lost without you, Tom, and maybe that’s by the design that you created, but that doesn’t change the truth. If you give up, I promise that I won’t let you go to prison. When have I ever broken a promise to you?”

There was a long pause, and then Tom’s shoulders slumped down, and it seemed to be in defeat. “Swear to me that you will leave with me right this second, and I will order my Death Eaters to stand down.”

“I swear it.” Then he held Tom’s wand out so that Tom could take it back.

Tom waved his wand once, and the snakey veneer seemed to melt away, leaving behind a slightly older, but no less handsome face that Harry easily recognized. He smiled as he watched Tom press the wand against his arm, and after several agonizingly long seconds, the sounds of fighting in the hallway died down. Tom held his hand out, and Harry accepted it. They disapparated away a moment later, off to whatever destination they had in mind. 

,,,

Harry groaned at the sound of his alarm going off, but he couldn’t move to turn it off because of the arms wrapped tightly around him. Instead of trying to wiggle free, he just settled back into the warm body behind him, and closed his eyes again. He could afford to sleep for just a little while longer.

**Author's Note:**

> Because of the fact that Tom erases Harry's memories constantly, the idea of proper consent being given between them seems a little iffy to me, even if Harry is enthusiastic about having sex with Tom (not that there's any explicit sex scenes, but just in a general sense)


End file.
